Keeping The Faith

CRE020 Meat Whiplash – Don’t Slip Up

With many of the old Creation bands back together again, I felt I should start a series of posts focusing on some of the other acts from the label, bands who may not be referenced as influences today but still helped to shape Creation Records.

The 20th single on the label was from Meat Whiplash. The band came from East Kilbride just like The Jesus & Mary Chain and the connections don’t end there as many of you will be familiar with them from supporting the band.

Douglas Hart was also originally their guitarist before joining the Mary Chain on bass. Their first ever gig was supporting the Reid brothers in Glasgow where they played just four songs, two of which were cover versions.

In the ‘A Scene In Between’ book by Sam Knee, Michael Kerr states that his mother knitted jumpers at the time which were worn by the band, you can also see his mother’s knitwear as sported by Jim and Douglas on the Old Grey Whistle Test appearance by The Jesus & Mary Chain.

The band only ever released one single in September 1985 which spent a staggering 19 weeks on the Independent Chart, this was the era when the mainstream charts were at its worst after the dreadful Live Aid gig and for many the Independent charts were their lifeline to hearing decent music.

The single clearly gives a nod to ‘Upside Down’ but with less feedback, however the vibe is there.

At the legendary riotous North London Poly gig in 1985, Meat Whiplash were first band on and guitarist Stephen McLean apparently threw a bottle into the audience which started to raise tensions on the night forcing the band to flee the stage.

A month after the classic single the band did a John Peel Session, the same week as the Peel Session they played with Primal Scream, The Weather Prophets and The Bodines at Hammersmith Clarendon. You can listen to the gig below.

After a chaotic 1985 things went quiet for Meat Whiplash and in the summer of 1987 three members of the band emerged with Alex Taylor of The Shop Assistants in The Motorcycle Boy.

With a debut single ‘Big Rock Candy Mountain’ on Rough Trade they took to the road with The Mary Chain on their Darklands tour, playlisted on Radio 1 and even graced the cover of NME all in the same week.

Soon afterwards they signed a record deal with Chrysalis and disappeared for nearly two years. They emerged with two singles in 1989 and as is often the case with the majors the label lost interest as soon as they realised the band weren’t going to be huge and they were dropped soon after.

An album was recorded but never released, you can find it on some blogs on the internet, it’s a great album.

Bass player Eddie Connelly later went on to manage Adorable in the 90’s.